This article first appeared on the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.lebanon on 26 Jul 1996

LebEnv #5

LEBANON'S COASTLINE CHOPPED UP

by Fareed Abou-Haidar

Lebanon's coast used to be well-known for its beautiful, wide-open
sandy beaches. Unfortunately, the beaches have not escaped the
environmental degradation plaguing the rest of the country. Trash and oil
are obvious examples. More often overlooked is the destruction of the
coastline by huge development projects, mostly in the form of resorts.

Most of these beach resorts turn their back to the beach because of
pollution in the sea. They usually include their own swimming pools and
paved decks; these are separated from the sandy beach by a wall of rocks
that has buried part of the beach. Stairs may lead to the remaining sand
for those willing to risk swimming in the sea.

Most of these resorts also include a private jetty (marina, port) built
of large pieces of rock quarried out of some unfortunate mountain. These
jetties have chopped up the beaches into little private segments separated
from each other by walls. Worse, they have wreaked the flow of currents in
the sea and may have affected the deposition of sand on the beaches.
Needless to say, public beaches are few and far inbetween and inadequate.

The worst of spectacles can be seen from Harissa, 500 meters above
the sea. The poet Lamartine once described the Bay of Jounieh, with its
graceful curve of sand, as the most beautiful in the world. In the 1960's,
the government built the port of Kaslik, which deformed the south end of
the bay with large, angular jetties sticking out into the water. During
the war, many private developments were built all along the bay, riddling
it with private ports and blocking the view of the sea from the old main
highway with big buildings. The Bay of Jounieh from Harissa now resembles
an old comb with broken teeth. Not pretty.

The best remaining beach in Lebanon is the Beach of Tyre stretching
south towards the border. Thanks to the continuing war, it has escaped the
development that has trashed the rest of the coast. It has been proposed
as a National Park (as of 1993), but I do not know if it has actually been
designated.

ENVIRONMENTAL ATROCITY #5-MERRYLAND (MERIDIAN)

Before the war, the government had the foresight to protect the
coast of Beirut by banning construction below the Corniche. This
guaranteed the scenic views of rocks and sea that Beirutis enjoyed on
their promenades. There were a few exceptions by old restaurants already
there, such as Ghalayini Restaurant below the Carlton Hotel.

During the war, when corruption was rampant, the new owners of the
restaurant got a license to build a resort, to be called Merryland.
Bulldozers gouged out the entire land mass between the edge of the
Corniche and the sea, dumping a huge wall of rocks and soil into the sea.
In the process, a prehistoric cave where Stone Age artifacts had been
found was totally destroyed. The tip of Beirut, as seen from Ramlet
el-Baida, looked like a maiden whose face had been mutilated by Jack the
Ripper. After standing empty for several years, a large building was
inserted in the hole. The place is now owned by Meridian, a well-known
foreign hotel chain that should know better than to invest in such illegal
and destructive projects.

Let's hope the government has the sense to protect what remains of
Beirut's coast. The area between the Meridian and Pigeon Rocks deserves to
be a world-class city park and nature preserve in a city that has almost
no public parks.